Going by the logic your presenting, if the "best team possible" in the future means more profit in the future, then we shouldn't have to worry. Exciting the fan base and filling seats have to have some value. And more TV watching would seem also to help matters in terms of the value of a TV/cable contract. Hopefully, Crane is mindful of not eroding the fan base further than is necessary. The longer we are bad, the longer it will take to build it up again when the team is good again. But I do agree with those that feel spending money this year would basically be throwing it away. If by some miracle we are around .500 at the all-star break, then maybe there is some incentive to plug some holes this year. I doubt this happens though.
Were Pittsburgh's payrolls at a disproportionate level? Not trying to be rhetorical; seriously asking. My impression was always that there simply wasn't enough money in the market to justify going beyond what they did.
Totally false. The Pirates have been very profitable. Two years ago the Forbes reports showed that the Marlins were one of the most profitable teams in baseball. Now, much of their profit is tied to the revenue sharing they get from other teams, but still, they are profitable. There is nothing in the CBA that would allow Selig to step in if the teams weren't spending enough.
Operating income is a somewhat different subject than revenue. http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?...hise-valuations&catid=26:editorials&Itemid=39 The Marlins, in the report you cited, were dead last in the league in revenue. So the idea that they have one of the lowest payrolls seems in lockstep. I'm not suggesting that Selig should or could step in. I know that won't happen. What I'm asking for are examples of teams who consistently spend disproportionately low to their overall revenues (reflection of market). The Marlins and Pirates brought in the least amount of money, according to the Forbes report, and I don't think it's a surprise that payroll reflects it. To me, most of the "blame the owner" complaints are from fans who refuse to accept that their market isn't big enough to justify a significantly higher payroll.
It is one thing, as a fan, to think crane will spend when the time is right. It is something totally different if you are going to spend hundreds of million dollars on a product, with an owner with no track record, who is asking for amounts similar to what the top teams in baseball are getting. Yes it is a long term deal, but as I've said crane doesn't have a long term background in this. If we say he will spend when the time comes and are wrong, we have a bad team to watch. If they spend hundreds of millions on the channel and the team stays as the worst in baseball, they are really screwed
Right and that's why Crane & Co really need the revenue from the CSN TV deal and for CSN to get picked up by the other carriers because under the current MLB economic framework that will be the only way Crane could handle a higher payroll capable of matching up with the bigger market teams who also have lucrative TV deals.
Except they get money from revenue sharing that more than covers their payrolls. Plenty of NFL teams are "have nots" in the sense that their individual operating income is lower (a lot lower) than other teams, but revenue sharing is where they get it back. MLB has a very robust revenue sharing model. No baseball team can justify the low payrolls they have, but they sell fans on it so they can pocket profits.
I looked here for some info on MLB's revenue sharing model: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/business/revenue-sharing/ Revenue Sharing In order to combat the growing revenue disparity among major league teams, MLB first instituted a revenue sharing program back in 1996. The plan was slowly phased in over a couple of years, and then was simplified and improved during the 2002 CBA negotiations. The current revenue sharing program has not changed much since then, with minor tweaks along the way. Although the plan is far from perfect, it has managed to give small market teams a much needed boost in order to keep them on somewhat-competitive footing with large market teams. Under its current iteration, MLB’s revenue sharing program looks something like this: ● Every team in the majors pays in 31% of their net local revenue, and then that money is divided up and equally distributed to every team. Since large-market teams will have much greater local revenues than small market teams, this already puts small market teams in the black. ● On top of this, a large chunk of MLB’s central fund (which are acquired through things like national broadcasts) is set aside to be allocated to teams based on their revenues. ● By 2016, the fifteen teams in the largest markets in baseball will be disqualified from receiving revenue sharing. This feature is being phased in over the coming years. The disqualified clubs will receive a refund for the amount that they would have received in revenue sharing, although teams that have exceeded the Luxury Tax threshold in recent years will not receive a full refund. (MLB.com)
You just may be on to something here. Good points. I found this article: http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5772:mlb-revenue-sharing-for-2012-approx-400-million&catid=30:mlb-news&Itemid=42 When the figure came out that MLB’s league-wide revenues were approx. $7.5 billion for 2012, a question that came up afterwards was, “How much was revenue-sharing, and how much did each club getting revenue-sharing receive?” The latter may never be known (for those wondering, the last time that figures came out in the media was 2002 and 2003, which can be see here), but the total figure, is. According to a source with direct knowledge of the figure, the amount of revenue-sharing that funneled from the haves to the have-nots in MLB this year was approx. $400 million. While the money is not distributed evenly across the clubs, if the 15 lowest revenue-makers were given an equal portion it would equal approx. $27 million for each of those clubs. The amount of revenue-sharing in Major League Baseball should stymie any talk that clubs can’t—at the very least—be able to compete selectively in the free agency space from time to time. It also affords club opportunity to wrap up talent on their rosters to avoid them leaving once they hit free agency. While it’s clear that the amount of revenue-sharing they received this year is not enough to cover the entire amount, the Rays likely covered a lot of the annual salary increase needed to ink Evan Longoria to his $100 million extension with revenue-sharing proceeds. That’s the purpose of revenue-sharing. Finally, there's this to consider. With the skyrocketing growth of regional sports network revenues, plus the continued robust nature of baseball as an entertainment option, it seems that in the very near future we'll see revenue-sharing in MLB surpass a half-a-billion dollars. With it, let's hope clubs are using the gifted money from their large revenue-making brethren wisely.
It sure seems coincidental, then, that the lowest-payroll teams are typically those at the bottom of the revenue pile. I get what you're saying, but there is certainly some correlation with payroll to the market size and/or fan support with Pittsburgh and Florida that isn't there in Houston.
The correlation is that it is easy to deceive fans into believing they have no money. The NFL figured it out and that's why the most important part of the salary "cap" that the NFL got was the floor. The Bengals and Browns for example are notorious for pocketing money and refusing to invest into their teams. The last CBA even changed the way they calculated salaries for the floor SPECIFICALLY because certain teams were using funny math on bonuses and stuff to hit the floor that they would never pay. Team owners in sports come in all shapes and sizes, and many of them are hell bent on pocketing as much revenue as they can, even at the expense of their franchise. The Marlins owner has absolutely no reason to have payroll levels where they are. They are a profitable club that swindled the city into a new stadium and then slashed payroll. Again. The reason they get away with it is because they don't have to report revenue sharing as part of their revenue.
For the first time in my Adult life, the Astros are about to play a Friday night game and I am unable to watch . . .this sucks . .FU jim crane
It seems as though the starting pitching will be good. Altuve and Maxwell have gotten to a good start, but the rest of the team is beyond awful.
I love going to games. But it's very difficult to sit through a game watching your team whiff like that over and over. I can't wait until Singleton gets up here and they move on from Wallace. It's enough already. Seriously, I feel like cheering when Wallace just makes contact...like he's a little leaguer. Crazy. And holy hell, 4 hours is an ass long time for a baseball game that only goes 9 innings. Geez. Fireworks didn't get started last night till well after 11.
That might ruin it for you, and sorry if that is the case For me, I am a lifelong Astros fan, have watched them on a daily basis for a majority of my life . . .and it sucks to not be able to watch them.
I would love the ability to watch Altuve play everyday, to watch Maxwell play, to watch Carter play, to watch Castro play, to watch Dominguez play. I think some of those guys have a chance to be a part of a really good team in a few years. I wish I could watch Norris, Harrell, Peacock pitch. It's only gonna get worse later in the year when I can't watch Singleton, Cosart and probably a few others . . .I know the team sucks, I get that, I'm fine with that for now, I'm down with the rebuild . . .
Of course you are...I am too. That doesn't make last night's game more entertaining though, I promise you. I'm working on ways to be able to watch them this year through other methods...and I'll watch my share of games. But this is not an entertaining baseball team right now...and if you're interested in watching the rebuild, you're probably better off watching MiLB.TV and falling the minor league teams than you are watching this current cast. I'm not sure much of what is here right now will remotely matter in 2 seasons.
Sadly I fear that this entire venture is just a money grab for Jim Crane. The sales line is we're rebuilding, but just look at the Pirates and Royals-they've been selling that tired line to their fans for 20 years now
